Trapped (in my mind)
by potterbite
Summary: Captain Swan AU - They meet in rehab. (A response to a prompt on tumblr)


Emma slouches down further in her chair, hoping to skip the personal storytelling this week, too. She hates this part. Or, well, she hates it all, but she can deal with the not leaving the premises, or no cigarettes except on weekends, or even the mandatory sessions with a therapist, because Archie is actually kind of nice, but the meetings with the group are the worst.

Fortunately, she only has two months left before she's going to be discharged. She'll still have to see Archie twice a week, though, but at least she will be able to go back – well, she doesn't know what she will be going back to, but a home? She doesn't think she still has one, seeing as how the last time she saw Neal she was waving from the other side of a cell. After the car crash, she'd only been sentenced to nine months in rehab – to _start _with, they had said, because they couldn't be sure just how big her problems were, they only knew that she had been so drunk that she'd almost killed that poor lady about to fetch her newspaper – while Neal had been high enough not to notice Emma had crashed and had therefore just smiled like a giant dufus at the cops when they had arrived. He'd also been carrying a ridiculous amount of illegal drugs, and had been busted for possession and dealing and the last Emma heard, he was about to spend six years in a federal prison.

After sobering up, Emma understood that what she and Neal had had together wasn't healthy; they'd go out every single day, never returning before the sun was rising, and she would always drink to the point where she couldn't stand up on her own, and Neal would go to the bathroom, always emerging with a smile as he dragged a finger under his nostrils to clean himself up, or sometimes come out scratching himself absently in the bend of his arm, trying to hide the mark the needle had left.

She still wasn't sure how it had gotten so bad.

When they met, she was nineteen and star struck by everything that was _him_, and didn't think about it when she grabbed her fifth beer for the night on their third date, smiling as he picked up a joint and started to smoke. It wasn't until now, six years later, that she could look back and see that maybe they had never been meant to be together at all.

It still hurts, though. Like a bruise that remains weeks after it first appears and you think that it has healed, but if you poke at it – just to be sure – you can still feel the pain as if it is fresh and the wound is opening up again.

But it's better now.

"Hello, Killian," the group say in unison suddenly, and Emma is brought out from her thoughts, eyes darting around the room until the finds the new guy. He sits on the edge of his chair, leg tapping up and down in quick movements as his fingers drums on his thigh. He looks amazing, Emma thinks with a jolt. Dark hair about to fall on his face, stubble that has been allowed to grow just a little bit too long, and eyes that doesn't seem to stop moving about the room.

He smirks at them all, and makes a ridiculous salute in response to their greeting. She can't help herself; she snorts.

His gaze snap over to her in a heartbeat, and while she knows that she's still sitting in a room filled with people, it suddenly feels as if she's drowning and _loving every second of it_. She tries to turn away (doesn't want to), but his eyes narrow slightly, and she can see the challenge in them even though she's sitting on the other side of the small ring the group has formed, and accepts it with a small raise of her eyebrows.

The corner of his mouth turns up at that, and he licks his lips – unintentionally? Or maybe on purpose, it's impossible for Emma to tell. Either way, it is enough to finally snap her out of it and face the confused look the group's leader, David, is giving her. She ignores it and folds her arms across her chest as a protection. Like a wall.

"I'm a musician," Killian says then as a reply to the groups questioning glances. "As some of you might know," he adds with a wink to no one in particular, but one of the women there still sighs in what can only be assumed to be pleasure or adoration. "The rum and I go way back, and I guess I finally took our brittle bond too far." He shrugs, obviously trying to be very casual about the whole thing, but Emma can tell he's lying.

(If sobriety gave her something else back except for her life, it was the ability to tell when someone was being dishonest with her or not. Somewhere in the middle of the vodka and the wine, she had lost it and was too drunk to care, and it wasn't until know she could look back and recognize when Neal had been lying to her. Sometimes it had been about the heroine, sometimes about the money, sometimes about another woman.

When it had hit her, about three months in to rehab, she had been too tired to be angry at all, and now enough time had passed for her to make peace with it. Or at least accept the past for what it was, and agree to a better future. And to be careful who to trust).

The group accepts it, though, and move on to the bald man Emma never remembers the name of, and she lets her head fall back as he tells everyone of his latest struggles this week.

.

It's Saturday four days later the next time she sees Killian.

She sits on the patio in front of the building, smoking her first – and only – cigarette this week when he joins her without a word. She is determined not to be any more intrigued with him than she already is, but when she looks over at his profile she sees a bright red mark going all the way round his left wrist as he lifts his cigarette to his mouth and her curiosity takes the better of her.

"What happened?" She nods at the mark and taps the cigarette a few times, watches as the ashes land next to her feet. She inhales again, keeps the smoke in her mouth longer than she usually does and waits for him to respond. She's afraid to look at him – not even sure how he reacted to her question because she looked away so quickly – seeing as she doesn't know him, and for some reason that bothers her. Like an itch that won't go away unless she asks the question that's being thrown around inside her mind, which just raises even more questions – more importantly; why does she want to know?

She exhales, and watches the smoke disappear into nothing.

"A brawl with an old enemy," he says after a pause. He shrugs like he did at the meeting, and Emma can tell there's more to the story than that, but she can also tell when someone slams the walls up high to keep out intruders so she doesn't press on any further.

"So, a musician? Have I heard something of yours?" she wonders instead, and he huffs a laugh.

"I'm in a band," he clarifies. "_A pirate's life for me_ has been hitting most radio stations for the past few months. _Join me at sea_ gathered some attention last year." He shrugs once more, and Emma groans, fighting the urge to scream.

"Stop shrugging like it doesn't mean anything!"

He looks at her, eyes widening a bit. "I – "

"No. Okay, first step to recovery: honesty." She turns on the bench to face him, and drags a hand through her hair in frustration, recognizing his behavior so much – seeing herself and the person she had been seven months ago so much in it that it hurts. "You don't have to be honest with strangers like me, or even with your therapist, but you owe it to be honest with yourself. If you don't want to share, don't say anything. But don't shrug it off like things don't matter. They _do_ matter."

He looks at her for a moment, eyes intense on her, and she squirms a bit under his gaze; it makes her uncomfortable how much she enjoys it, despite tearing him a new one just seconds ago.

"You're a sharp lass. I like you," he says, pointing at her with a smile before he stands up. "Join me for dinner?"

His question takes her off guard, and her mind speeds up. Is he asking her to join him as a companion to the depressing dining hall? Or what does he mean? "I – well, I'm not – What –" She tries to think of a reason to say no, but she _wants to so bad_, and her mind seems to agree. "Fine."

They head inside side by side, and bonds further over the grey sausage that is being served for dinner.

.

Emma's last two months pass in a blur and she and Killian spends most of that time in each other's company. Seeing as she had been sober for about seven months when he got there, and Killian for just a short week, Emma tells him some of her own tricks during their time together. How she immediately directs her thoughts as soon as even the word drink or alcohol pops in her mind, or how she writes most of her thoughts down in a journal.

(He scoffs at that one, though, but Emma makes a deal with him to write a weeks' worth of notes and she'll listen to an entire album his band has made; he agrees.)

(_All alone_, the third track on their first album, strikes very close to home with Emma, especially the refrain; '_All alone I traveled the world, Never knowing where I belonged, It wears me down being so alone, All I need is a home_', which makes her eyes tear up every time she listens to it. She has it on repeat before she goes to bed, letting his voice soothe her ache, but doesn't dare tell him about it.

He finds out anyway, but doesn't comment).

They share stories of their lives as they grow more comfortable in each other's company, and Emma finally learns what happened to his wrist; she tells him of her years with Neal, and it hurts less than she expects it to. They realize they have a similar childhood, both orphans lashing out at the world, and it's easy to relax in his company when she feels as if they have known each other for far longer than the shy two months they have. She can feel her wall starting to crumble, but when he gives her that look - containing more words than he could ever speak - she finds that she doesn't care, and it's easy to trust when he obviously feels the same way.

The last night she spends in the rehab facility, she sits with Killian outside in the garden (which happens to be the least depressing place to be without having to leave the grounds).

"Where will I go?" she asks him, gaze turned up at the sky. She's nervous about heading out to the real world again, having been isolated for so long, and wonders how she'll deal with it all, or if it'll be too overwhelming. She's terrified she'll relapse, and Archie has even given her his private number to call any time, any place, any hour with the promise that he knew she was strong enough to resist.

Instead of answering, he points to a star that shines the brightest of them all. "See that one?" She nods, knowing he'll see it even though he's looking at the sky as well. "Well, if you ever find yourself in trouble, just follow that one. It will always lead you home, lass."

At that, she tears her gaze away from the sky and looks at him. "It's a scary place, sometimes."

"What, Boston?"

"Yes. No. Everything. The entire world is frightening when you're all alone." She hugs her legs, presses them closer to her chest, and hardly notices when the moisture in her eyes spills over onto her cheeks until Killian raises his hand and dries them with a finger. It's nice, having a friend like Killian, she thinks, and firmly represses the shudder that wants to be let loose at his touch. Instead, she smiles at him.

"And how will you survive in here without me?" she asks as a joke. "You'll have to join forces with Bert." She has finally learned the name of the bald guy, and loves to tease Killian about Bert, seeing as Bert seems to be Killian's biggest fan.

Killian smiles at her, small, without it touching his eyes. "Perhaps I will."

She sees the look in his eyes – recognizes it so much it hurts; abandonment; loneliness; ache – so she barely hesitates before sliding an arm around his neck, pulling him in for a tight embrace.

She takes a deep breath, trying to memorize the smell of him, the feel of his hand on her back, and how he twirls her hair with his other one. She squeezes as hard as she can, afraid that if she lets go she might wake up and have to enter reality, which seems brutal and unforgiving.

They stay like that for a while – she can't be sure how long, but a member of the staff come and get them when it's so dark outside, the moon and the stars are the only lightning outside – and he intertwines his fingers with hers as they head inside, parting only when they have to. She doesn't look back, afraid to see what his eyes might hold, and falls asleep when she's too exhausted to do anything but.

"Find me when you have healed," is the last thing she tells him before the doors closes behind her, whispering it closely against his ear, and suddenly she's all alone again; it doesn't happen like a movie when he would've run after her, nor do they hold hands until the last moment or lock gazes when she's standing outside on the pavement. It is what it is; a simple wish in a harsh reality.

Abruptly, she has to face the world for the first time since spring. It's scary, and feels bigger than she remembers it, so she leaves the big city with its loud noises and crowded streets after just a few short weeks for a small town on the coast. She manages to get a job, and with her first real pay check she signs the papers of her very own apartment. When she's settled she sends a letter to Killian, just with her name and an address, and hopes he might come visit her one day.

She misses him.

.

Ten months later, she's heading home from work one night when she looks up at the sky to find her star (like she does every night) to find it beaming stronger than ever. She frowns, wondering if she's looking at the wrong one, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Keeping her gaze up, she starts heading for her apartment, following the direction of the star (as always), when she suddenly hits a firm wall seeming to be a person.

She falls back a few steps, and feels her cheeks turning red. She keeps her head down, too embarrassed to look her victim in the eyes. "Ugh – Sorry, I wasn't looking – God, I'm so clumsy, can I –"

"Emma?" A voice interrupts her incoherent rambling, and she raises her head slowly, not daring to believe it's true, it couldn't be –

"Killian?!"


End file.
